Equities market drops by N30bn in two days as profit-taking persists

Performance in equities market continued in negative note as the market capitalisation dropped by N30 billion in two days following profit-taking by investors.

Market capitalisation closed today at N8.69 trillion, a drop of 0.34 per cent from N8.72 trillion the equities market opened for trading this week.

Also, The Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NSE ASI) dropped by 0.39 per cent to close at 25, 233.42 basis points from Monday’s opening figure of 25, 333.39 basis points.

After today’s trading, Forte Oil led retreating stocks, with a 9.74 per cent depreciation to close at N53.85 and Oando lost five per cent to close at N3.61 per share.

Transcorp Hotel trailed with a decline of 4.90 per cent to close at N5.24 per share while Fidelity Bank lost 4.88 percent to close at 78kobo per share.

Honeywell closed the day at N1.02 per share following a depreciation of 4.67 per cent.

On the other hand, Mobil led the day’s appreciating stocks with a 10.25 per cent appreciation to close at N241.89 per share. UPL followed with a 4.87 percent growth to close at N4.09 per share, while UAC-Prop recorded a gain of 4.68 percent to close at N2.46 per share.

Total recorded a 3.83 percent growth to close at N254.85 per share and AIICO Insurance added 3.51 percent to close at 59 kobo per share.

Wema Bank emerged the most traded stock for the day with 356.2 million shares valued at N181.3 million, Diamond Bank followed with 63.6 million units of shares worth N57.5 million while FCMB came third with the sale of 14.6 million shares worth N15.0 million.

Eco transnational Incorporated (ETI) traded 9.5 million shares worth N92.9 million and Wapic Insurance sold approximately 6.9 million shares at N3.5 million.

Investors traded a total of 511.6 million shares at the end of Tuesday’s trading session. The shares traded in 2,342 deals, were worth N1.695 billion and represented a 153 percent growth from 202.4 million shares worth N1.616 billion, exchanged in 2,558 deals on Monday.

In the money market, the inter-bank’s foreign exchange spot rate window closed flat on Tuesday relative to foreign currencies.

Specifically, the Naira closed at N305.25 against the Dollar. The CBN maintained its daily intervention of $1.5 million at N304.75.

T he Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (O/N) close higher at 10.58per cent and 11.42 per cent respectively, representing a growth of 1.92 per cent each.

The T-bills market traded extensively on the bearish side as investors sold position in anticipation of scheduled OMO auctions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Wittingly, the CBN declined to allow today’s auction fly despite receiving subscription well above the offered amount. On the average, yield across curve appreciated by 11 basis points.